Pathetic
by I like drawing ducks
Summary: What do you do when someone you are determined to whatever to protect is determined to do the same for you? And what do you feel when someone tries to give up your life for you?


"A story! I've been telling a story, and I thought I was making it up, but it's real! It's your life! I've seen your life?"

Fear gripped Miss Honey's heart. Matilda knew, she knew how her teacher had grown up, under what conditions, how she had been treated… Matilda had seen her life. Somehow she'd seen her life. Her life. Her pitiful horrible life.

How much had she seen? Had she seen… Did she know?

There weren't many parts of Miss Honey's upbringing that ware appropriate for a child to know about. It was already a bit much to tell her what she'd already said. If she knew...

"You've seen my life?"

It felt a bit silly, to repeat it. She HAD seen Miss Honey's life, that much was clear. She knew things she had no other way of knowing. She just hoped that she hadn't seen much of her life, not seen it all at least.

"She did him in! Lets go to the police!"

The young girl grabbed her hand and tried to drag her away – towards the door and towards the police. The older teacher had to fight to not be dragged away despite the younger girls size.

"No! No we can't! We've no evidence!"

The teacher could all to well imagine the reactions of the police officers if she came in and tried to accuse such a respected figure of the community of a murder – even worse – a murder of a person dead almost 20 years that had long since been written off as a suicide.

"We can just tell them! Tell them she did it!"

Miss Honey almost smiled a bit, glad that the young girl despite her maturity still had faith in adults and society. Faith that if you only told someone everything would be okay. But Miss Honey had herself long since lost that faith and knew that it was no use.

"It won't work, Matilda! It would be my word against hers! They'd never believe she was capable of murder!

"But why? She was so cruel to you! She beat you!"

When Miss Honey heard those words it was as if the world stopped. She felt nauseous. Matilda knew, Matilda understood. Matilda had seen how her aunt had treated her – in all it's horror. Miss Honey covered her ears. She tried hard to not think about how she had grown up, what she had had to endure – and she especially tried to not let anyone else know how her upbringing had been.

And the girl continued.

"She shouted at you! She locked you up in tiny cupboard and threw you into cellars."

The girl knew all of it. Miss Honey felt like the room was spinning.

The details of her previous life was not something that was appropriate for such a little girl as Matilda to know about. Especially not when these details were tied to a person.

And Miss Honey did not particularly want to be reminded of how she had been mistreated. She tried her best to keep it out of mind – which was hard seeing as her aunt was who she was. But if it was something Miss Honey was good at it was putting them out of mind.

"Stop, Matilda, please"

Miss Honey tried her best to push all of it out of mind, to not let Matilda see how much it all affected her.

"Miss Honey your aunt is a murderer. She killed Magnus. WHO IS SHE?"

Miss Honey felt a tiny pang of releif at the thought that Matilda at least didn't know who her aunt was. That she wouldn't do anything foolish and get herself horriblt hurt. Then Matilda froze as if she had a sudden realization and Miss Honey felt that hope slip away. The girls next utterance confirmed her fears.

"Miss… Miss Trunchbull"

Matilda ran off before the teacher had time to react- She thought about running after the girl and trying to convince her to not do something stupid, to remind her of how powerful the headmistress was, of what she could do but realised that it all would be futile. And a part of her didn't want to limit this girls world any more than it already was. And another part, so tiny that Miss Honey had almost forgot it existed felt hope.

But most of her felt worry. She tried reassuring herself that there was nothing, well at least not _more_ to worry about - Matilda already knew how dangerous the Trunchbull was, and reminding her of what she could do, what she had done… That would only strengthen her resolve.

And Miss Honey did not want to do the Trunchbull's job for her, she did not want to make another girl feel powerless because of the horrible woman.

Instead the teacher laid down on the part of her floor that served as a bed. Matilda's outburst had brought back memories to the surface that she tried hard to suppress. She couldn't do that of course, not when she saw her aunt every day – but she managed to put it out of her mind enough to keep herself from shaking, enough to keep herself functioning.

And now it had all come back. Every last detail, every horrible day.

Not through any action of her own – but still. Miss Honey couldn't help but feel like she should have been more secretive. That she should have kept her feeling more in check, not given the little girl so many clues.

Despite herself Miss Honey started thinking back. She didn't often do that, at least not out of free will. Sometimes memories came flashing back suddenly, like when the Miss Trunchbull yelled at her students, or when she yelled at Miss Honey herself. But Miss Honey did her best to push the memories back, to concentrate on protecting the children in her class or standing up for them and told herself that she was pathetic reacting like she did.

But now she was thinking about the past, deliberately trying to remember. Because Matilda had mentioned parents.

She couldn't remember a time when her aunt hadn't lived with her. A time when she hadn't been deathly afraid every time her father would leave the house. She thought of how she had thought, that if she only cleaned a bit neater, that if she only cooked a bit better, that if she wasn't so… so pathetic that then her aunt wouldn't punish her.

It was wrong. It wouldn't have helped. And still – Miss Honey couldn't help but feel like if she just wasn't so _pathetic_ her life wouldn't be.

And it was with these thoughts twirling around in her head and clinging to her fathers scarf she cried herself to sleep.

Matilda rushed away from Miss Honeys cottage, thoughts flying around in her head. Her wonderful, lovely, amazing teacher had grown up with the Trunchbull as her aunt. She was the girl in her story. She was the girl whose parents had died. She was the girl who had been horribly abused. That was her teacher. That was Miss Honey. That was her _teacher._ Strong and unwavering and always fiercly protective.

Another thought popped into Matilda's head uninvited.

 _She's like me._

She instantly felt guilty. Although Matilda was young she was old enough to understand that wishing that more people were like you – when you lived _this_ kind of life.

It was horrible enough that the story was real. That there had been a girl who had lived like that, but to think that it was her lovely teacher who had lived under her aunts tyranny… To think that her teacher was _still_ living under her aunts tyranny.

Matilda almost gasped thinking of all the times the Trunchbull had shouted at her teacher and of how Miss Honey had cowered. She thought of how Miss Honey had called herself pathetic.

Miss Honey wasn't pathetic.

But Miss Trunchbull had with her cruelty and her violence made her feel that way.

It was all to horrible, and it had to end.

And then thinking about all of this a plan began to form in Matildas mind. It swirled and twirled and began to solidify.

Sometimes you had to be a little bit naughty.

Sometimes you had to be A LOT naughty.

When Miss Honey woke up it was already light outside. She looked at her watched and was relieved to find that she still hada few hours before she needed to be in her classroom.

Before she needed to be prim and proper and…

She suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion hit her. Hard – like a ton of bricks, or a train. She amused herself by finding the metaphor that fit the best and finally found that wave of molasses was the right answer.

She allowed herself to be happy with this for a moment.

Then the events of the previous day hit her.

Matilda knew. Matilda knew who the aunt was.

And that aunt was going to teach Matilda's class today.

"Oh don't let Matidla do something stupid..."

Miss Honey buried her head in her hands. What if Matilda did. What if she stood up to the Trunchbull. Miss Honey was well aware of what the headmistress was capable of, what she could do to Matilda - and the thought of any of that happening felt like her soul, the very fiber of her being was being sucked through a black whole and arriving in pulverized form somewhere in a huge ocean among so many atoms that she would never find a single piece of it again.

Her soul. That is.

"That disappeared years ago" she muttered to herself.


End file.
